Ashes
by hekmatyar
Summary: Being wrong might not be something she's used to, but she always knew it was a possibility.  Ikuko/Toya


_This came into existence after my friend and I discussed the whole concept of their relationship. Takes place after "Toya"s suicide attempt._

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><p>In the hospital bed, he looks pale and tired; like a paper sheet that has been folded and creased until it became translucent, or like a shirt that has lost its colour after having been washed too many times. Ikuko can't remember whether this is how he always looks when he's asleep, or if the sterile hospital gown and pristine sheets that she tucked around his body just sucked all the life from him, dulling the color of his hair until even the glaring sunlight coming in through the window can't draw out the streaks of pure crimson that she knows are hidden somewhere beneath the ashen strands. She doesn't like this room, not at all. It's too big, too spacious, yet it feels too small for both of them now. She doesn't like this contradictory nature. It makes her nervous. It makes her want to get up from her chair, grab her coat that's neglectfully draped over its back rest, and leave as fast as possible.<p>

_(Yet, he always deserved more in the end. More than this room. More than you.)_

She knows that she can't do this, and that she possibly can't blame the room for her tension. The room didn't flush his skin with that horrible pallor of a man who came too close to death. These bright, white walls didn't rob the colour from his cheeks and lips, or make the veins stand out as thin blue lines on the back of his moon-bleached hands. Parched, sucking up nutrients from the IV needle. So needy, so thirsty.

_(Here, look right down at it. Look at what you've caused.)_

The room didn't do this to him. It was the blood loss. It was the impact of bone hitting stone. It was her. She had observed the area where he had crashed down; had seen a few stray lonely trails of crimson, had looked for proper stains in the grass but found none. She wondered if there hadn't been any in the first place, or if the storm that came soon after the happening had washed them away. They would shower down on her whenever it rained now.

_(It's all your fault. That's why.)_

It all melts into one in her head; their past, and present, and what happened on that day when Battler- _no_, she has to correct herself, _Toya Hachijo_- had decided to end his life. She remembers it all so clearly; to the point of wanting to write it all down just for the sake of being able to forget. What if he'd find it some day though? Records of how she's feeling now, knowing that suicide seemed a better option than life for the man she'd scooped up from the shore years ago?….he'd think she was pathetic. He'd find out her true motives, and he'd call her a traitor. Because, in the end, where is her right to feel like that now- so helpless, so taken aback by herself, sitting by the edge of his bed and watching him like she cares- that is just _wrong _and make-pretend.

Or isn't it? She's forgotten how to tell whether she truly cares about him or just pretends to do so to make him feel at ease and make him spill all that she wanted to hear. Did she ever even know?

Being wrong isn't something Ikuko is used to, but she always knew it was a possibility. A certainty, even. Some part of her always believed that he had lost the ability to be wounded by her words, that his ability to speak back up to her had faded over the years like a snowflake melting in her palm. His past, the information that was still crouched in one of the twisted angles that made up his mind- that was all that she was looking for, and he as a person didn't count as much. She thought she'd already seen all of him that she needed to see, that the rest of him would sleep forever underneath his skin, hidden from everyone and slowly dying in isolation.

_(Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wro-)_

He's a complicated mass of feelings (not her property) and memories (not her property) and thoughts that she cannot possibly control. She never realized this. Maybe she never even saw him as a person; the entity of him had always remained untouched like he was locked behind glass- she could see through it, and press her hands against it to receive what she wanted (in so many ways), but still…maybe it's because he looks so thin and weak now, and maybe she's going crazy (she hasn't slept in days), but she thinks she can see it resting there- this man whose pain she ignored, even when she held and soothed him, and the man whose trust she took for granted. Maybe this is what has snapped her out of her selfish rigor- realizing that this body _could_ bleed and die, and that the mind that rested inside could very easily do the same.

Battler Ushiromiya- Toya Hachijo- is a human being. Maybe she fears that part of him; there's something indiscernible and powerful inside of him that remains untouchable. She can't warp it. She can't tear it out and work with it like she did with the information he provided. She can't smash it on the ground. She can't do what she wants with it.

_(It's not your-)_

Not her right.

He's moving now- his forehead creasing as if sensing something putrid in the room. His lips press together as if warding off some ghostly kiss that is not hers, and his fingers twitch on the bedsheets, still alive- still blessedly alive, thank the God she doesn't believe in.

_Please don't wake up_, she thinks- not meaning his current awakening process. She's scared that he'll wake from the long, dreamless sleep of their years together and say what she knows is true. This- it's her fault. It's all her fault. She was suffocating him with her cupidity, and why didn't anything happen for her to atone for it, why did he have to be the one to suffer in the end? She knows, she knows, and he has the right to say it but she doesn't want to hear it, she doesn't want to give up yet, not after all that has happened.

His eyes open slightly, and she sees that the color of them hasn't dulled. It's still vibrant; the same deep brown with amber and russet hues that once matched his hair. He's still handsome, and the strongest person she knows, and that's what makes her heart pound out of control like it did the day she found him. She's shocked at what has happened since then, what she's done, and her lungs can find no air, as if he's stolen it from her, as if she has to pay a price for his survival.

His eyes slide over to her, and she can only stare back at him.

He smiles. _I screwed up, right?_

And a tiny, despicable part of her wishes he hadn't.

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><p><em>So this is the first story I'm publishing online in English...there will be so many grammar mistakes. ;A; I really, really hope you enjoyed it regardless of that! Thanks for reading!<em>


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